17 thoughts on “St. Clair won’t play this season”

That has got to be so frustrating and a major bummer for St. Clair. I hope he keeps his head up. Is going back to the USHL for another season a possibility for St. Clair? I wouldn’t think the kid would wanna miss out on a years worth of hockey playing. He could easily stay enrolled at UND by taking online courses.

I know you are correct on the 5 years to play 4 thing, but I question when that starts. If he’s not even on the team, I dont think you can call that a redshirt year. Also, redshirt players get to practice with the team and since St. Clair cant even practice, I question whether he loses any thing. My guess is he still has the 5 years.

With that… can anyone tell me why hockey plays dont ever red-shirt? The only time is comes up seems to be an injury situation. Is it because of the likes of the USHL, etc. acting as the minor leagues?

My question is why did it take that long to determine that St. Clair is not cleared to play? You would think that would take a couple days, maybe a week to get straightened out. It’s like this isn’t the first time the NCAA has had to delve into whether players are eligible and whether credits transfer. Why did it take something like four weeks to get this answer? Was everyone in the NCAA eligibility office on vacation in September? Do they take the cases as they come in and UND was just down the list? Or do they just get to it, when they get to it like any other bureaucracy?

I think a person has six years to finish four years of playing D-1 hockey (I don’t know if the rules are the same across all sports). A person could start college full-time and not play hockey for two years and then have four more years of eligibility, as I understand it.

I seem to remember a UND player losing a year of eligibility a few years ago because he started college full-time at 18 then after a semester (he may have even dropped out) decided to try junior hockey, played until he aged-out went to UND and then ended up losing one year of playing time.